Street Justice (23 page)

Steve put down the binoculars he had been peering through and asked “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

              “Nope,” Adrian said unapologetically, “As I mentioned, we are going off vague descriptions of areas, but this is my best guess.”

              “You know, we can see the tracks from Holgate as well, and there is a Krispy Kreme up there.”

              “So you want us, as law enforcement officials to stake out a potential drop from a doughnut shop?”

              “I agree it might be a bit stereotypic but hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts are good.”

              Adrian turned to Steve and smiled, saying “See? I’m saving you from yourself. If we were staked out there you’d weigh four hundred pounds and let’s see you fight at that size.”

              “I could just lay on them then. Of course I’d have to ask them nicely to stop so I could catch them, but I’m sure a few might.”

              “Yeah, but not enough.”

              “I guess you’re right. Besides, they don’t let you drink in Krispy Kreme.” Steve pulled a flask out of his pocket.

              “But they do have coffee,” Adrian said shaking his cup to indicate it was empty.

              “Now who is arguing for Krispy Kreme? Wait…” Steve lifted the binoculars to his eyes. Steve stared out across the dark tracks to see an even darker shadow approach a battered junction box on the far side of the track. The figure took a quick look around and then knelt in front of the box. “I told you this car was a great sleeper. He didn’t look twice at it because of the wagon profile,” Steve offered.

              Adrian, who was also now peering through binoculars did not argue. He knew there a variety of reasons the figure had not been spooked, the most likely one was that he simply did not see the car tucked in behind a dumpster in the back of a private parking lot for a company that made some sort of industrial packaging. But he also knew that Steve took his cars seriously and more importantly personally, so he kept quiet. “I can’t see what he’s doing, his back is to us.”

              “Yeah, a can see that, but it looks like he’s putting something in the box.” The figure moved around a bit more, then stood up and took another hesitant look around. Satisfied, he scurried back off into the night. “Let’s go take a look.”

              Steve and Adrian opened their doors. Steve had disabled the overhead lights, so they continued in the dark, trying not to trip over the rails as they made their way over the myriad of tracks. “Hey, look, there is a new, light mark on the outside of the box.” Steve whispered.

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” Adrian said, “I didn’t see that before.” Finally reaching the box, Adrian risked a small pen light. He shone it on the face of the box and sure enough there was a small but distinct white chalk mark in the lower left corner. He grabbed the front of the box and pulled it open.

Inside they found a small plastic container. In the container was a small note that said, “Need two pillows for room 4.”

“What does this mean?” asked Steve.

“I’m not sure but I would guess two pillows refers to two of some quantity of drugs and room four is a drop.”

“But we don’t know what drugs or where?”

“Nope,” Adrian agreed.

“So we take this note, head over to Carl Marfori’s and question him about it?”

Steve could see Adrian’s disappointed look even in the minimal light. “And what is he going to say? ‘I have no idea what that is. What are you doing bothering me? I know nothing.’ This doesn’t link anything to him. All we have is a cryptic note, left by a suspicious man in the middle of the night in a clandestine location, but that doesn’t account for much in a court of law.”

“So what are our next steps?” Steve inquired.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I am tired. So let’s contact the two uniforms you had who were running surveillance on the wheel shop before you busted it up and see if they might be willing to help with this drop. They can sit on it, see who comes to get the note and where they take it.”

“Sounds good, I’ll call them as you drive home,” Steve said.

“I’m driving back?”

“Of course you are, I have to make a phone call and I don’t want to drink and drive.”

“But you haven’t had anything to drink.”

“Not yet.” Even in the dim light Adrian could see Steve grinning.

Johnny strolled down Colorado Avenue. Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, he ambled as if he had no plan and no destination. He stopped in the middle of the block, lifted his foot and placed it on a nearby stoop. Glancing up and down the road, his eyes shielded by reflective wrap-around sunglasses, pretending to simply view his surroundings. But Johnny’s hawkish eyes knew exactly what to focus on. It was not the kids on the corner, dressing in their suit of armor. This armor was not metal, or even Kevlar, it was over stuffed jackets and skinny jeans with Timberland boots. This was not armor from bullets and knives, but from the rest of the real world. It allowed the boys to fit in on their corner and told everyone else to stay away.

Johnny laughed. In the rest of the world, the puffy jackets and Timberlands were accompanied by sagging jeans, not tight jeans. But skinny jeans were hipster and it seemed that even gangsters couldn’t escape a bit of hipster-dom in the kingdom of hipsters that is Seattle. Johnny’s true intent in looking around was scanning to see who noticed him stop.

Through experience with street gangsters, both in the US and abroad, he knew that they were fairly linear. That meant that what they saw was what was. That meant that when one gang wanted to take over a block, they drove past the block and figured out how many people were on each block and figured they had to shoot that many people. They would then come back in either car or on foot or a combination and kill that many people.

Then those who had been vanquished from the corner would lick their wounds, drive back past their corner, do a little math and start the cycle over again. Those that gained the knowledge of the cycle did it first hand and died for the most part. Those who did not die, doubled down on being tougher, and were killed the next time or the time after that. Those who survived, rather than thinking they got lucky and should change their strategy before their luck ran out, instead started believing that they were in fact tougher. They would become what the new guys aspired to be and the cycle started once again, doing what they did, getting what they got.

So there was very little evolution in the way the street folks of any area did business. But they did evolve and Johnny knew what others were doing. He hated the saying “knowledge is power” because it was not true. Knowledge is only power if you can do something with it. But Johnny’s knowledge of dealing with a variety of people throughout the world taught him how things had evolved. As he stuck his leg up to tie his shoe his eyes scanned looking for the watchers in the windows, a block or more away.

He saw what he was looking for, subtle shifts in the blinds on the second floor above and a bit behind him. The movement was quick, and the blinds went back to their original spot. Trying to move his head casually but quickly he glanced behind him and saw the second floor blinds of the window directly across the street moved. Rather than returning to their original place however, they stayed moved. It was not much, the slightest gap, but there did not need to be much movement to train a gun barrel on him. He knew without looking that at least one more gun, from a building near or even past the corner was trained on him.

Being so close to the buildings, the gunners on his side of the road would not have a shot without opening the window and they did not want to give away their position, but if he should make trouble the windows would be opened quickly. These elevated guns, spread wide, gave the defenders additional sentry capabilities, elevated firing positions and an increased number of firing lines. The defense was people intensive, and more importantly, used people with some training and discipline.

Understanding his position, Johnny did not make any trouble. He continued to casually walk down the street. Without getting too close to the corner workers, he crossed the street, to the kitty-corner. Because there was no traffic, Johnny was able to walk a third of the way down the street before rejoining the sidewalk. The corner workers followed him with their eyes but did not say anything nor did they move in his direction. Still keeping his casual gait, he made his way back to his car. He had been out scouting for nearly the entire day. This was the third place he had parked, having moved from one place to another when he felt the general area around his position was spent.

But he knew what he was looking for and what it meant. The heightened security meant that the corner was held by one of the better gangs or at least the smarter ones. A gang could not hold the entire city so they had to focus on the corners they wanted. Plus, because of the extra trained men, not every corner a gang held could be held without the added precautions. That meant a smarter gang chose that corner and within their choice of corners, this one was worth extra protection. That meant this was a high earning corner. 

As he slid behind the wheel of his rented Chevrolet Spark, he pulled out his cell phone and called Alex. “Alex, Johnny. I think we’ve found our corner. It was quiet but it is the day time. Let’s say we roll down here tonight and do some surveillance.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Great, I’ll swing by and pick you up.” Johnny said. He put the car in neutral, revved the engine and dropped it into drive. The little underpowered car managed a small chirp of the wheels as it jerked into drive. Johnny laughed to himself, knowing that was the best it could do, knowing he was damaging the car, knowing he did not care.

Adrian sat hunched over his computer, tracking conversations, sifting through veiled posts and following users, trying to locate new drops. Steve sat at the end of his desk cleaning an H&K HK45. The thick bullets sat on their ends, looking like a little audience watching. Adrian’s phone rang. He picked it up, “Hello…yes, sir.” He hung up the phone and said to Steve, “Come on, Sam wants to talk with us.”

The two men arrived at Sam’s office and Adrian knocked on the door. “Come in,” came Sam’s voice. They walked in to see Sam at his desk and James sitting in a chair behind him. Sam looked tired and defeated. Sam motioned for the two men to sit. As they did, Sam started talking, “So how is the investigation coming?”

Adrian and Steve looked at each other then at James, then back to Sam. “Well sir,” Adrian began, “A bit slow to tell you the truth. Since our encounter at the wheel shop…”

“An incident that should not have happened,” James interjected.

Adrian sighed and continued,” Yes, an incident that should not have happened. Anyway, since then, we have had trouble gaining traction. We believe we have some viable leads, but at this point we need more man hours to put surveillance on people. Now that we have lost the original leads given to us we are starting over.”

Sam rubbed his eyes. James offered his opinion, “See? There is nothing here, you should shut this whole operation down.”

Sam turned and looked at James, “I know you are here on behalf of someone, trying to accomplish something, but did you really just say there is nothing here? Are you saying there are not drugs on our streets? That there are not gang-bangers running corners? That there is not an import pipeline circumnavigating our import system?” Sam paused and let his rhetorical questions hang in the air and he stared at James. 

After a long silence, James said, “Of course not.”

Sam did not say a word to James and turned to face Steve and Adrian again. “Unlike my friend here, I do believe there is something we need to investigate. However, I cannot add more resources at this time. You painted yourself into this position by over stepping your bounds and chasing after Carl. That distracted you and dried up your leads and leeway. So it is up to you to find a way out. While I won’t shut you down yet, you are on your own.”

James sat behind Sam and nodded, finished his scolding. From his vantage point, James could not see Sam’s face, but Adrian and Steve could read the frustration on the older man’s face. Rather than protest, Adrian said, “Yes sir, we understand.” The two men stood and left.

Johnny drove over to the hotel where his team was staying. Alex met him outside. Alex hopped into the passenger’s seat and said, “Let’s get some dinner before we go on surveillance. I’ve got a few things I’d like to run pass you.”

“Sure thing,” Johnny said and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The thin tires chirped a tiny bit on the cement of the hotel driveway. They drive a few blocks to an Ivar’s Fish and Chips restaurant, ordered and sat down. The two men chit chatty about the Seattle Seahawks and the geographical layout of the city while the food came. Once the food had been dropped off and the employee was firmly out of hearing range, Johnny asked, “So what are you thinking?”

“Well, I was doing some research online and it seems that even with their being five of us, there won’t be enough people for us to hold a corner and work it. That means either we need to hire local guys as guns or as workers.”

Johnny stirred a piece of fish in his tartar sauce for a moment, thinking about what Alex had said, then asked, “So which do you propose?”

“Well, while I certainly do not want to trust one of these local yahoos with my money, I would trust them to stay vigilant and watch my back even less.”